


time present and time past

by QuidProCrow



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Post-Canon, Time Shenanigans, Trauma, on the interdimensional road trip of a lifetime (or many lifetimes), two people having a real hard time here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 02:05:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13203447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuidProCrow/pseuds/QuidProCrow
Summary: Dale and Laura try to reconcile some familiar faces, including their own, in their road trip through time.





	time present and time past

**Author's Note:**

> title from [‘burnt norton’ by t.s. eliot](http://www.davidgorman.com/4Quartets/1-norton.htm)

she is acutely laura, in this moment. most of the time, in fact, she is somewhat laura, picking through scattered and distorted memories, a hard glaze in her eyes as she tries to reconcile two lives and all the pain between them. sometimes she is a little more carrie than laura, forceful and loud and confused, like she was when they first met and they went to that house and she told dale if he was going to break her open he may as well finish the job, _tell me who she is, then, who’s this laura palmer?_ but since then she’s been quiet and sharp and a ghost like laura, peeling off the mask of carrie page piece by piece. 

but here, she is _laura_ , eyes starling and clear. 

 

they’ve seen a few of them. they aren’t doppelgangers. they’re just—versions. scattered around in their travels. the same faces, same souls, different people. diane was linda, and he never saw her again. one time he saw albert, or a man who looked just like him and would’ve have a different name, and dale turned away from him and didn’t look back. the morning laura pushed the curls out of her hair so it laid flat she saw a face she refused to identify to dale, but she went back to the hotel and stole a curling iron and recurled every inch of her hair and told him that carrie was on to something, with this hairstyle, said in a toneless voice that it looked better on her. 

“laura,” he’d said, and she’d jumped like she was going to split out of her skin. he didn’t discount the possibility. so dale didn’t ask her who she’d seen. it’d be hypocritical to judge her for hiding, anyway. 

the point is, now, here, wherever it is, whenever they are, there is a woman in front of them, behind a counter in a convenience store, where the lights are too bright and the colors too vivid and real. a same face, a same soul, a different person. 

dale met donna hayward a few times in twin peaks. he knows she was laura’s best friend, back in that period of time where things, somehow, made more sense. he knows what they meant to each other. he knows what she looked like, the soft sweep of her hair and desperate kindness in her eyes. 

this isn’t donna, and this is, in the way that laura is and still isn’t carrie page. and where laura is suddenly bright and sharp and so laura, this woman has a name tag that proclaims her as _teresa_ and she seems in no hurry to be anyone else. but here she is, regardless. an open smile, a wondering face. what would it take to find donna? 

he looks back at laura. her jaw is clenched tight, tension clear in the set of her spine, in how her eyes look down and away, flickering at everything else. beyond that, he has never seen someone so still. dale takes the bag of chips she’s been clutching at and puts it on the counter, does the same with the rest of their things. 

“nice day outside,” says the woman. she’s still smiling. “is all this for a picnic?” 

the anxiety in the air snaps apart. laura takes one step back, then another, and then turns and walks right out. dale watches her go. 

“is she okay?” the woman— _teresa_ —asks, leaning forward a little. 

dale isn’t sure she’d understand any of the responses he’d give. it leaves a hole inside him, a feeling he doesn’t like. he pays and leaves. 

he finds laura out in the parking lot, sitting in the passenger seat of the car, digging her nails into her palms. 

“laura,” he begins. 

“shut up,” laura says, voice wavering. her shoulders are hunched and trembling, her hair falling across her face. “don’t—don’t fucking talk to me.” 

dale gets into the drivers seat and shuts the door. he sits and watches laura. then he thinks about albert, about the man of twenty-five years ago, the man of not too long ago, and then the face he saw. what would’ve happened, if he’d spoken to him? swallowed his pride and tried to find the remains of albert rosenfield? dale doesn’t know. in this moment, he suspects nothing good. 

“god, i wish it was her,” laura whispers, squeezing her eyes tight. she puts her head in her hands, laces her fingers through her hair. “oh, _donna_.” 

he’s not sure what to say. and it’s awful, because dale cooper was the man who always had the answers, who always looked for them, who could always put someone at ease with his presence. he had hoped, so much, to do the same for laura. but this dale cooper, twenty-five years away and still wandering, can’t find the words anymore. he brought her father to acceptance once but he pulled laura out of it. his stomach turns when he thinks of saying too much to her now. 

it’s so strange to see her face, filled with all these emotions, after the calm mystery of his dreams and her corpse. sometimes he catches her staring in a mirror, like she’s trying to figure out the cause of each line in her face, each dip in her skin she can’t remember. it’s so strange to see his own face too, to know this is who he is, so mostly he avoids looking. he knows the cause of every lost space in his features. 

laura jerks her head up and yanks her hands down. she dives into her pockets, fingers scrambling, searching over and over again. she pats down her jacket, her sweater, her jeans, before dale realizes what she must be looking for. 

“carrie page didn’t smoke, i don’t think,” dale says. 

“well, she fucking should’ve,” laura snaps. she keeps hunting anyway, until she stops. she looks back at the convenience store and then turns away sharply, pushing herself back into the seat. “well. donna didn’t like it when i did it anyway.” her shoulders shift and her mouth trembles, her voice getting quieter and quieter. “not that it mattered, i think. but i cared what she thought.” 

they sit in a cool silence. dale should take his keys out, start the car, keep them going. he stays still. 

“do you remember,” laura says, “the last thing you said to someone important?” 

dale swallows. “i told them all i’d see them again,” he says carefully, staring down at his hands. 

“no, i mean—before.” she gestures loosely with a hand, curls it through the air. “ _before_ before.” 

what was it, the last thing he’d said? to albert? to harry? the words come back to him in a rush. _albert, i can handle it. harry, i have to go on alone._ his hands tighten around each other. 

“i don’t,” laura murmurs. “i don’t know what i told her. _fuck off_ , for all i know. i was so—and i can’t remember, isn’t that sad? that whole day’s a blur. except—and even that’s not—i remember _his voice_ , like from a distance, and a—a dark room, and a mirror. but it’s funny.” she rubs a hand over her chest, slow. “i can’t feel it, anymore. where i died.” 

dale raises his eyes to her face. 

“you—” laura starts. she looks up, eyes wide. “you took it from me.” 

suddenly she is the girl of twenty-five years ago, an open fear on her face, voice ragged and filled with a burning fire. she is the girl who fought and fought back until— 

he is still left with his own death—so many years outside of space dulled neither the memory nor the scar between his ribs—but it’s still with him, a reminder, and he didn’t think what that would mean to take it from someone else. here is laura palmer, painfully alive. 

“i am,” he says, “so sorry,” although he knows it’s not enough. 

she stays hard and cold, a thick red curtain between them. long minutes go by before her face softens, and she shakes her head, all the fire dying away. “yeah, well,” she says vaguely. “yeah.” 

laura seems to know what he means, which is a blessing dale didn’t think was possible and he doesn’t know if he deserves. 

“i know you,” laura says. “i would’ve wanted to help you, too.” a smile pulls at her lips. “not that it would’ve gone any better.” 

he doesn’t smile. he can’t just keep apologizing to her. she probably wouldn’t stand for it, now that he thinks of it. 

“would you like to go back?” dale asks. even he’s not sure what he means, _to go back_. back where? it didn’t work before, that endless running. but he has to give her a choice in this place.

laura tilts her head back, staring at the cool blue sky through the windshield. then she wipes at her eyes and takes in a breath. “no,” she says softly. “i want to keep going.”

**Author's Note:**

> never did i expect to write something that actually fit within season 3!! but i was reading some post-canon fics and then the first line of this came to me and i was like, 'oh, well, why not????' and i ran with it. sometimes that's all you can do. and then i accidentally backspaced while finally posting my draft of this and messed up the initial post and had to type out my author's notes again. sometimes that's all you can do, too.
> 
> as always, here's [the tumblr](http://www.whoslaurapalmer.tumblr.com)


End file.
